For several years the trend in domestic refrigerator cabinets has been to increase the size and in particular the width of the food compartments and doors in top or bottom mount refrigerators.
Typically, the refrigerator door is constructed from an outer door panel of sheet steel material having rearwardly extending side walls. The door has an inner liner wall of plastic material attached to the door panel. Foam insulation is injected in the space between the outer panel and the inner liner. The foam expands and cures to thermally insulate and rigidize the door.
In order to conserve costs, the amount of steel used in the manufacture of these doors is optimized. The practice is to use a relatively thin sheet of steel for the outer panel. Often this sheet is in the order of 0.017 inches thick. Consequently, in order for the refrigerator door to maintain it's integrity and support articles or items stored on door mounted shelves, one common approach is to reinforce the door with cross braces located within the space of the door between the inner liner and the outer door panel. The metal cross braces extend from the corners of the refrigerator outer panel in an X configuration to reinforce the refrigerator door.
Another known approach to rigidize the door is to use a sheet of paper, aluminum foil or cardboard embedded in the insulation injected into the door cavity. This paper sheet is sufficiently large to cover the inside of the door and is taped to the door to prevent shifting. The sheet improves the rigidity of the door without significantly adding to the weight or cost of the door. More recently, metal sheets have been substituted for paper to improve rigidity. However, the metal sheet adds more weight to the door.
While the above described approaches in refrigerator door construction improve the rigidity of the door, these solutions are more directed to reinforcing the door outer skin and inner liner. To further strengthen the door outer skin, the corners of the door, formed when the skin is rolled back onto itself to provide a supporting peripheral flange for the door liner have been welded to strengthen the corners. However, this results in the distribution of the corner hinge loading forces across the outer door skin which is the very problem for which the above methods of reinforcement are attempting to compensate. Clearly, there is a need for a refrigerator door corner construction that eliminates the problems associated with door corner loading, reinforces the door, and reduces load transfer from the corner through the door onto the relatively thin steel outer skin wall of the refrigerator door.